United States

Few passages of history are more striking than those which record the efforts of the earlier French Jesuits to convert the Indians. Full as they are of dramatic and philosophic interest, bearing strongly on the political destinies of America, and closely involved with the history of its native population, it is wonderful that they have been left so long in obscurity. While the infant colonies of England still clung feebly to the shores of the Atlantic, events deeply ominous to their future were in progress, unknown to them, in the very heart of the continent.

 JEAN DE BREBEUF. - CHARLES GARNIER. - JOSEPH MARIE CHAUMONOT. - 
 NOEL CHABANEL. - ISAAC JOGUES. - OTHER JESUITS. - NATURE OF THEIR FAITH. - 
 SUPERNATURALISM. - VISIONS. - MIRACLES.

 THE CENTRE OF THE MISSIONS. - FORT. - CONVENT. - HOSPITAL. - CARAVANSARY. - 
 CHURCH. - THE INMATES OF SAINTE MARIE. - DOMESTIC ECONOMY. - MISSIONS. - 
 A MEETING OF JESUITS. - THE DEAD MISSIONARY.

NATIVE TRIBES.

 OSSOSSANE. - THE NEW CHAPEL. - A TRIUMPH OF THE FAITH. - 
 THE NETHER POWERS. - SIGNS OF A TEMPEST. - SLANDERS. - 
 RAGE AGAINST THE JESUITS. - THEIR BOLDNESS AND PERSISTENCY. - 
 NOCTURNAL COUNCIL. - DANGER OF THE PRIESTS. - BREBEUF'S LETTER. - 
 NARROW ESCAPES. - WOES AND CONSOLATIONS.

 HURON TRADERS. - BATTLE AT THREE RIVERS. - ST. JOSEPH. - 
 ONSET OF THE IROQUOIS. - DEATH OF DANIEL. - THE TOWN DESTROYED.

THE PARTY ISSUES. - The issues which divided the Federalists and the Republicans from 1793 to 1815 arose chiefly from our foreign relations. Neutrality, French decrees, British orders in council, search, impressment, the embargo, non-intercourse, the war, were the matters that concerned the people. Soon after 1815 all this changed; Napoleon was a prisoner at St. Helena, Europe was at peace, and domestic issues began to be more important.

THE COMING OF THE DUTCH. - We have now seen how English colonies were planted in the lands about Chesapeake Bay, and in New England. Into the country lying between, there came in 1609 an intruder in the form of a little Dutch ship called the Half-Moon. The Dutch East India Company had fitted her out and sent Captain Henry Hudson in her to seek a northeasterly passage to China. Driven back by ice in his attempt to sail north of Europe, Hudson turned westward, and came at last to Delaware Bay.

In many respects the election of Jackson [1] was an event of as much political importance as was the election of Jefferson. Men hailed it as another great uprising of the people, as another triumph of democracy. They acted as if the country had been delivered from impending evil, and hurried by thousands to Washington to see the hero inaugurated and the era of promised reform opened. [2]

GROUPS OF COLONIES. - It has long been customary to group the colonies in two ways - according to their geographical location, and according to their form of government.

Geographically considered, there were three groups: (1) the Eastern Colonies, or New England - New Hampshire, Massachusetts (including Plymouth and Maine), Rhode Island, and Connecticut; (2) the Middle Colonies - New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; and (3) the Southern Colonies - Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. (Map, p. 134.)